Sonia asks Cong, MPs, MLAs to donate a month’s salary

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday directed all party MPs and MLAs to donate their one month salary for relief work in the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand as the magnitude of the flash flood tragedy continued to unfold taking the death toll in the rain fury to 190.

Ms. Gandhi also directed all party MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to give Rs. 10 lakh each from their MPLAD fund for carrying out relief work there,” party’s communication department in-charge Ajay Maken told PTI.

Congress has currently 203 members in the Lok Sabha and 72 in Rajya Sabha.

The party has also set up a PCC control room at Dehradun to accelerate the relief work.

AICC Secretary Sanjay Kapoor and the party’s wing Seva Dal’s chief Mahendra Joshi have been sent to Dehradun to monitor the work.

“All PCC chiefs are being asked to send all the relief materials from their states to Uttarakhand immediately,” Mr. Maken said.

Terming it as the “worst tragedy of the millennium”, Agriculture Minister of Uttarakhand government Harak Singh Rawat said, “It will take us at least five years to recover from the extensive damages caused to the entire infrastructure network in the Kedarnath area which is the worst affected.”

Mr. Rawat, who had visited the Kedarnath area, said that he spent five hours there and was shocked to see the extent of the damage caused to the buildings and area adjoining the shrine.

Operations to rescue over 9000 stranded in Kedarnath and Badrinath were stepped up with deployment of 40 helicopters.

The MP LAD fund is not the MP's money but people's money which is supposed to be spent for development of the country. Diverting this money may affect future development. Further the total amount comes to about 27.5 crores. The congress party has thousands of crores. If the party is really interested to fund the relief work it can donate four times the money from its own kitty instead of putting the burden on the taxpayer.

from:
Saurabh

Posted on: Jun 23, 2013 at 13:53 IST

Why only one month salary, ask them to donate all the black money.

from:
Saraan

Posted on: Jun 23, 2013 at 13:21 IST

Does the one month salary donation include below the line earnings of our "netas"?

from:
K. Sinha

Posted on: Jun 22, 2013 at 07:07 IST

One month salary Wow...!!! What a magnanimous Congress Leader and her political followers. Poor politicians !!!

from:
Selva

Posted on: Jun 22, 2013 at 05:27 IST

Most of the Congress MLA's had declared property worth of crores and now they want people to donate. Why?????